


defeat

by Hinn_Raven



Series: deprivation [8]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Bad Ending, Captivity, Dark, Gen, RvB Angst War, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 08:44:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14040489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinn_Raven/pseuds/Hinn_Raven
Summary: Wash has survived being captured by Felix before, he can survive this again... right?





	defeat

**Author's Note:**

> WE'RE BACK. So, like I said way back when I finished deprivation, I originally had planned a bad ending as well as a good ending, but ended up not doing it that way. Wellllllllllll. 
> 
> Then the angst war happened. actual-acetronaut asked to see it. and I was happy to go back to that dark, fucked up universe of mine. 
> 
> WARNINGS FOR: torture, captivity, brainwashing, drugging, abuse, violence, and discussed character death (Locus).

Agent Washington is healing.

He clings to this fact like a talisman, whispering it to himself at night. He longer spends his days in a cell, trapped in place by tape the color of the armor his friends wear. He can stand up and walk without permission, he can eat whatever he wants to. He can talk, he can say no, he has _choices_.

He is a person.

Just earlier today, Wash had been thinking about how it’s been a month since Wash was finally, blessedly able to feed himself with his own hands.

A month since Wash managed to cross a red line without throwing up

He hasn’t crawled in weeks. He ate a punishment food last night just to prove he could, and he didn’t flinch every time someone moved their hands.

He’s healing, he’s a person, he’s better. He is not broken. He doesn’t crawl. He’s not afraid of colors. He survived. He’s not broken.

He’s _not_.

He says this to himself as he cowers in the corner of the room, unable to even pace the full length of it, kept trapped in the corner by shackles around his ankles and teal tape which warns him that there will be consequences should he even tries to lie down fully.

His tongue is numb, too clumsy to talk, swollen by the pills that Felix shoved down his throat at the old base. Things went dark after that, and he woke up here, stripped of his armor, his wound from Felix’s knife cleaned and bandaged, shackled in a way that he was never before, unable to use his voice, and with no idea of where he is or where his friends are.

 _I am a person_. He reminds himself again, trying not to shake so hard that he falls apart. He tugs again at the chains on his feet, and they rattle in a way that feels like it’s mocking him.

But what could he do even if they did open? He’s as trapped by that tape as he is by their weight around his ankles.

The door opens, and Felix enters the room.  

It’s wrong to see Felix wearing the green stripes on his armor, but it’s effective. Wash’s eyes follow him attentively, and there’s a part of him—a horrible, traitorous, weak part—that is happy to see him.

That’s the part that they broke, broke so completely that he never could even talk to Grey about it, the part that has _nightmares_ about Locus dying, like it’s something awful that should be mourned, instead of something that freed him from this living hell that he’s somehow stumbled back into.

They broke him.

Felix is going to break him again.

Fear flares through his veins, sending waves of ice that numbs his limbs and make his struggles cease as Felix grabs him by the throat and _squeezes_.

Wash gasps for air, but either the broken, frighten part of him or the logical part of him that remembers how to avoid further pain stops him from trying to break the grip or fighting back. Fighting back never brings anything but more pain.

Locus had drilled that into him, over and over again. Broken ribs, broken bones, being shoved into tubs of ice water, shocked and burned and beaten… he’d been trained not to fight back. Felix’s helmet swims in his vision, and Wash feels his head grow light.

That doesn’t mean he won’t, he promises himself as Felix’s fingers finally release him, allowing him to greedily gasp for air, leaning backwards to stop himself from falling forward, over the line of tape the color of Tucker’s armor.

He’ll fight back. He just needs to bide his time.

“Good to see you haven’t completely forgotten,” Felix says. Wash’s tongue is still unable to form sentences, which probably spares him from a snarky comment that he can _feel_ just out of reach. He produces a pill and holds it out. It’s different from the other pills that Wash remembers; it’s green and round, and larger than usual.

But Felix holds it out to Wash. “Let’s see how much punishment you’ve earned for today,” he says, and Wash thinks about Locus’s dead body, and the every single rule he’s broken over these past few months as a person, and he’s suddenly so cold that he thinks he’ll never be warm again.

He’s earned punishments. He’s earned a _lot_ of punishments. He’ll need to cooperate some, to conserve his strength.

At least that’s what he tells himself as he bows his head and eats the pill right out of Felix’s hand, like he’s been trained to do.

He needs to survive. He needs to conserve his strength. He needs to not give them an excuse to kill him, to throw him aside before Tucker and the others come for him.

Because they’re coming for him, Wash thinks, sitting upright. They have to be coming for him.

The pill tastes bitter, and Wash chokes on it as he swallows, wondering wildly why this one’s different.

Last time, there had been many different kinds of pills, but they’d all done basically the same thing. They’d calmed him down, putting him in a haze. It made him wild for human contact, fucked with his memory, and made him compliant to the point of painful obedience. Earlier ones had made his limbs too heavy to move, had made him sluggish and slow, while they waited for him to learn that fighting back was futile, while they perfected the drugs they fed him.

This one’s… not like that. Every nerve in his body feels like it’s on fire, and for a panicked moment, he thinks that Felix fed him poison and he’s not about to live long enough to be rescued again, not long enough to see Tucker shove a sword through Felix’s throat like he’s promised.

It’s the last coherent thought Wash has for a while, as Sharkface enters the room and blind panic overtakes him.

* * *

 

Washington is well trained enough that he doesn’t scream when Sharkface enters the room, and Felix grins. He’s leaning back against the wall, practically plastered against it. He’s pale as a sheet and dripping with sweat, pupils dilated with fear as he stares at Sharkface, trembling from head to toe.

Felix strides over casually and undoes the chains around Washington’s ankles, and then slowly peels up the tape. Washington doesn’t move, just sits there and _shakes_.

“ _Crawl_ ,” Sharkface orders, pointing at the ground. Wash glances at Felix for a moment, and when Felix nods, Washington scuttles forward, towards Sharkface in his new orange armor.

“Fear is the key,” Felix muses out loud, even though Wash can’t hear him. “I think that’s what really took us so long to get right with you. Fear and affection. You can handle pain. You just lie back and think of the Reds and Blues, telling yourself that they’re coming for you, that you’re protecting them somehow… honestly. I mean, pain’s _important_ , don’t get me wrong.” He presses a hand into Wash’s hair, and Wash lets out a small noise. “You don’t _learn_ without pain.” He pulls out a type of ration bar that means punishment and shoves it into Wash’s mouth without care. Locus liked to make Washington prove that he was a good little pet, liked to make him eat it on his own. But Locus isn’t _here_ , and Felix wants to get to the fun part.  

Washington gags on the food but chokes it down obediently. The moment he’s swallowed, Sharkface starts.

He’s too well trained to scream. Sharkface pulls back a foot and kicks him right in the ribs, sending the former Freelancer into the wall, and hard.

When the two of them spar, Sharkface always makes it hurt. He’s not like Locus, who doesn’t— _didn’t—_ want to hurt Felix. He doesn’t care about that.

And Sharkface _hates_ Washington.

Felix slowly starts to strip himself out of his armor. It’s weird to be in Locus’s colors, but it’s what they need to do.

They have three weeks before Hargrove wants to see Washington. Three weeks to break him down again. Then, they’re supposed to load him on a shuttle, the two of them with him, and leave long enough to drop him off and train his new handlers.

Felix isn’t quite sure he’s willing to leave Washington with Hargrove.

Washington, broken, battered, shattered, is Locus’s masterpiece. He is obedient to his colors, still falls to his knees at the sound of his voice. Felix helped, but Locus was the one to take Washington and break him into millions of pieces.

Maybe he’ll just get off the planet, kill Hargrove, and then take Washington and maybe Sharkface and just… go away. Leave Chorus to rot, tangled in the UNSC’s bullshit, with no clue how to track Felix down, and just… leave. Buy a television the size of a billboard, go out at night into nearby cities to track down some people who just need killing, and then bring back the scraps for Washington to kill. Sharkface can do whatever he wants. Welding or shit. He doesn’t care.

And then, one day, when things are calm, he’ll track down Lavernius Tucker. And then he’ll bring him back for Washington to kill.

He tilts his head, watching as Sharkface grabs Washington’s arm and twists it until it breaks. The sound echoes through the room, but Washington still isn’t screaming. Like Felix had suspected, the fear pills pushed Washington completely back into the headspace of those days before things had gone wrong. Washington had been gearing himself up for a fight, planning to try to keep himself intact enough for a rescue that he’ll have promised himself is coming.

He doesn’t understand that it’s so much easier to break something that’s already broken.

Like him.

Felix reaches up around his neck and curls his fingers around Locus’s old dog tags. Washington has fallen to the ground, breathing in shuddering gasps, blood smeared all over his face.

“Hope you like the view, Sam,” he says softly, before going over to look after their pet.

He gets just enough time with the healing unit that he’ll be fine, but not enough time to actually stop him from being in pain.

Washington lets out those soft, delectable whimpers that are the only way he’s allowed to ask for things to stop.

Sharkface scoffs as Felix buries his hands in Wash’s hair and starts to pet him. It’s grown out; the Reds and Blues had cut it short some point after they’d rescued him, or maybe Washington had made that decision for himself. Felix prefers it long. There’s more to pull on when he misbehaves hat way.

Wash lets out one of those soft, delighted noises at being pet, leaning into the physical contact he’s so starved for. Even though only twenty-four hours ago, he’d probably been curled up in the middle of a goddamn cuddle pile, or whatever method the Reds and Blues had developed to try and spoil Washington to heal him or whatever bullshit they’d pulled.

“I thought we were punishing him,” Sharkface says. And that, right there, is what’s so frustrating about Sharkface. Sure he’s agreed to help Felix break Washington, but he doesn’t actually want the weapon, the pet. He just wants to break Washington for the sake of breaking Washington.

Maybe Felix doesn’t need a partner, he thinks in disgust. Maybe he should kill Sharkface when he kills Hargrove. Make Washington only obedient to him.

“Ah, come on,” Felix laughs. He’s completely out of armor now, so he pulls Washington into his lap like a small dog. Immediately, Washington is leaning up against him, pressing himself into the physical contact. “We need him to be _loyal_ , not just scared.” He takes Wash’s chin in his hands and tilts his face up so that their eyes are meeting.

Slate grey eyes skitter around the room, still frightened like at trapped animal. He doesn’t like meeting Felix’s gaze and squirms in place, sensing that it’s a sign of equals, somehow, and remembering that he’s not supposed to be that.

Felix thinks, for a moment, that he sees something hard and steady in that gaze.

But when he grabs Wash again, and looks more closely, it’s gone.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, now go back and read "victory". But leave a comment first please! ;) 
> 
> Angst war is still happening until Friday, so you know, if you've still got a prompt, you can find me at secretlystephaniebrown over on tumblr.


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